About Joe Mullich
Joe Mullich’s writing has appeared in more than 500 publications, ranging from the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Wired Magazine to Consumer Reports, Cosmopolitan, and The Onion. He has received more than four dozen writing awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, National Headliners, International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, LA Press Club, and other press organizations. He has written more than 50 stories for Super Lawyers, including regular cover features in Southern California. The common thread in his work is story telling—relating even the most complex topics in terms of the effect on people.
Articles written by Joe Mullich
It’s Hot When You Face the Broiler
Bruce Broillet knows how to weave dreams and win casesSeveral times, Bruce Broillet asked the prospective juror whether she thought she could be impartial in the case ahead of them. And each time, the woman avoided his eyes and muttered, "Well ..." Out of pre-emptive challenges, and not wanting to agitate or bore the rest of the jurors, Broillet relented and sat down. One of the battery of opposing attorneys took his place in front of the woman and got the same waffling response to the same question. Finally, he said, "Madam, can you please just …
Why Did Carol Burnett Sue Over That?
Jean-Paul Jassy and the fight for free speechHardly anyone has a problem with it. Occasionally, someone tells me to please not do it. But Jean-Paul Jassy is the first person to heartily praise me for asking if I could tape-record my interview with him. He tells me that the asking is shrewd, considering recent legal issues with California journalists over surreptitiously recording subjects. And so I hurry to flip on the tape recorder, already behind the always-racing Jassy, who has become one of the top First Amendment and media attorneys …
The Supreme Court Whisperer
Jean-Claude André's high court trifectaWhen Jean-Claude André was a second-year law student at the University of Virginia, he pledged he would one day argue a case before the Supreme Court. André didn't just hope for his dream to happen by good luck. Like the good lawyer he is, he studied what he had to do to make it happen. Which is why André, who just turned 32, has already appeared before the Supreme Court—three times. His quest began when he saw a newspaper article about a young lawyer named Tom Goldstein who had appeared …
Tough Guy
The unfazeable Robert MurphyAs his helicopter descended into Boron, a dusty mining town in a desolate stretch of San Bernardino County, Robert Murphy saw hundreds of angry strikers surrounding the Borax chemical plant to which he was headed. The plant was home to the largest open pit mine in California—a mile long, a half-mile wide and 500 feet deep—and the scene was ugly. Borax hired Vietnam veteran Special Forces personnel to patrol the inside perimeter of the plant. Every so often, the strikers tossed a snake over …
The Prosecutor Gonna Knock You Out
Amy Dinn fights hard, on skates and in the courtroomFor the moment, set aside Amy Dinn’s successful work in complex business litigation as an associate with Gardere Wynne Sewell. Forget her membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society while an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin. We know that you, like everyone else, want to hear about Dinn’s tough-chick alter-ego “The Prosecutor,” who is a member of the “Machete Betties,” an all-woman roller derby team that plays at the Verizon Wireless Theater in downtown Houston from …
The Max Factor in Mediation
Bringing beauty to the business of lawBurbank attorney John Fagerholm was sure his case would go to trial. His client, an older man, put some real estate in his younger girlfriend’s name—and then they broke up. “It was about real estate, but it was really about the emotions—like who got the dog,” Fagerholm says. On top of that, Fagerholm hated—absolutely hated—the opposing attorney. “He was one of these guys from the mid-’80s who are trained to get as much as they can, no matter what’s fair or what the facts …
Michael Baroni Hates Big Law Bills
By keeping lawsuit costs low, and thinking like a businessman, this general counsel has presided over a doubling of company revenuesMichael Baroni, general counsel and secretary for BSH Home Appliances Corp., is bubbling with excitement because he just hired a paralegal. That may seem a trifling matter for the top lawyer of a fast-growing, several-hundred-million-dollar company that makes such iconic appliances as Thermador cooking devices. However, in this case, having a paralegal effectively doubles the entire legal department, which until now has consisted only of Baroni. Baroni sits behind his computer in his office at …
Seeking Asylum
Whether he’s representing a princess or an accused terrorist, San Diego's Jonathan Montag fights for immigrant rightsJonathan Montag—his shirtsleeves rolled up and wearing no tie during this slow, casual morning between Christmas and New Year’s Eve—ambles by the waiting room at Montag & Nadalin, which is filled with posters of far-flung, exotic locales: Paris, Venice, Egypt. A colleague stops him in the hallway to confer about an immigration visa for a client who desperately wants to remain in San Diego. Montag answers his colleague’s questions and settles into the chair in his cluttered office, …
The Magician of Hopeless Causes
Welcome to the Winston McKesson files of formerly lost casesIn the parking lot of the swank Pacific Dining Car restaurant, as red-vested valets stare off into the distance, attorney Winston “Kevin” McKesson suddenly inches toe-to-toe with me and points a shotgun at my chest. It’s not a real shotgun, mind you, just McKesson’s pantomime of a trial he handled five years ago in Visalia, Calif., when a group of black kids was charged with attacking a group of mostly white kids. For a moment, though, the shotgun sure feels real to me; a frenzy of …
Portrait of the Lawyer as a Young Arts-Lover
Mitch Mitchell doesn't just represent artists and writers, he is one himselfMitch Mitchell, a partner in the recently launched law firm Arai Mitchell, is talking about bridges, specifically the theory that centuries ago Native Americans and Asians traveled over a land bridge and influenced one another’s art styles. “They share a similar philosophical viewpoint about man’s relationship with nature,” he notes. Mitchell has a personal take on that connection, since his father was a Comanche Indian and his mother a Japanese American, but the bridge metaphor cuts …
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